Take It From Me
by angellwings
Summary: [lyatt] [post 2.12] [one shot] So, this wasn't exactly the plan. And she doesn't just mean showing up on Wyatt's doorstep less than five hours after being set free from the Bunker. That wasn't a part of the plan, either, but she's referring to something else. A much bigger plan.


**A/N: **Every so often I do a prompt game on twitter. I have several that I owe my followers right now and here's the first one. They pick three numbers at random and they correspond with a list of prompts that I have. I take those three prompts and write a one shot.

As usual with my Lyatt babies, though, it got wayyyy more emotional than I intended.

But, hopefully, you guys like the result.

Happy reading!

Angellwings

PS - see the note at the end for the prompts.

* * *

Take It From Me

By angellwings

* * *

"Take it from me if you want a t-shirt to sleep in.

It's my favorite but you can keep it.

Looks good baby you should leave it,

Hanging off your shoulders.

Now give them bare feet dancing down the hall,

Smiling at me running your finger down the wall.

You know what I want, I got what you need,

Take it from me.

Just take it from me,

Take my word, take my heart,

Take my kiss and maybe take it too far,

But baby take it from me."

-"Take It From Me" by Jordan Davis

* * *

So, this wasn't exactly the plan.

And she doesn't just mean showing up on Wyatt's doorstep less than five hours after being set free from the Bunker. That wasn't a part of the plan, either, but she's referring to something else. A much bigger plan.

A plan she followed even when her mother had been lying on her deathbed and her sister had urged her to dream bigger. Before time travel and Mason Industries, she'd thought about, but never seriously considered, chucking the plan. Each time she decided she valued her mother's dreams above her own.

The plan was to become tenured, settle down with some other advanced degree laden individual, and a have a kid or two to carry on the Preston Legacy. Authoring books, bringing in grant money, making a romantic something out of nothing with her boss — those had all fallen within the comfortable borders of "The Plan".

Hopping in a time machine, losing her sister, exposing her mother as the leader of an evil cult, falling in love with a widowed soldier — those things had _not_ been anywhere _close_ to the plan.

But they happened.

She's living through them.

At some point, without deciding to, she'd thrown the plan out the window. It's long gone and there's no getting it back

The plan is a tiny dot in the far off distance at this point.

For the first time in her entire life, Lucy feels unfettered. But not in a free sort of way. In a frightening sort of way. Like she's walking a tightrope with no safety net. One slip and she'll fall to a very _gruesome_ death. Her losses feel like weights dangling from her wrists as she balances above a crowd of spectators. The trek across would be so much easier without them. If she could stop being reminded of all the ways she failed Amy, failed Flynn, then moving forward wouldn't seem so impossible.

But she can't. So it does.

Which is the reason she's currently standing on Wyatt Logan's doorstep with no more than the strap of a tiny cross body bag on her shoulder.

She tried to stay in her mother's house. She told Wyatt it was what she wanted. That she needed to do it. Alone. Just her. On Christmas.

What the hell had she been thinking?

She dumped her bag in her childhood bedroom, took a shower in the hall bath, and then it all fell apart from there. She took one long look at the kitchen and froze. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, eyes wide and her hands shaking, but the minute her stomach growled she seized the excuse. Grabbed her purse.

And bolted.

One look at the clock on her car's dash, as she sped away, told her she'd barely been in the house four and a half hours.

God, she's a chicken. A big ass chicken. With bright yellow feathers. Big Bird. She's Big Bird. Is Big Bird a chicken? He is, isn't he? Or is he some sort of yellow flamingo?

It's in the middle of her mental Big Bird rant that Wyatt's door swings open.

She has his address because they had planned for her to come over tomorrow so the surprise on his face is understandable. He stands there for a beat and takes her in. She's not sure what gives her away — she never is with him — but she's not at all taken aback when he leans against the door frame and knits his brows together in concern.

"What's wrong?"

Does she really think she can get away with her "thought you'd want to get lunch" excuse? She knows him just as well as he knows her. She knows he won't buy that story. It's bullshit.

She gulps and looks down at her shoes. "It's too soon. I panicked."

No admonishment follows. No condescension. She expects maybe a "you should have called me" or "I tried to tell you" but neither happens. No, he simply nods and steps out of the doorway, giving her room to come inside.

"I was about to order some food," he says as he shuts the door behind her. "You hungry?"

Her stomach grumbles again, sensing it's moment. "Apparently, I'm starved."

He laughs and motions for her to follow him to his kitchen. As she walks through the living room she notices it seems oddly bare. Even when considering the fact he hasn't lived here in far too long, the space feels...empty.

He clears his throat and gives her an awkward glance. He knows she's noticed. "I took a bunch of things to my storage unit this morning. Gonna try and sell some of it, trash the rest. Until then I just couldn't...I didn't want it here."

There's only one reason he would need something out of his sight immediately. She bites her bottom lip and pushes through her hesitance to ask. "Let me guess, it was Jessica's stuff?"

He nods stiffly, but he doesn't clam up like he used to. "Hand me downs from her parents that I kept after she died. Stuff from our first apartment that I was sentimental about. Just...memories. _Burdens_, more like. I thought I'd give that 'not dwelling on the past' thing a try."

"What's that like?" She asks with a wry grin.

"A hell of a lot easier now that all traces of that past are trapped behind a locked door," he admits as a crooked smirk takes hold of his lips.

"As Jiya would say, hashtag relatable," Lucy replies with a tired sigh.

"These are the take out menus I have," Wyatt says as he runs a soothing hand up and down the curve of her spine and uses the other to gesture toward the menus laid out on the counter. "I'm game for whatever so you choose."

"Are these places open on Christmas?" Lucy asks skeptically.

He holds a finger and nods. "Good point." He picks out a Thai menu, a Chinese Menu, and a Denny's menu. "I'm game for whatever," he repeats with half a grin as he holds them up for her. "So you choose...as long as it's one of these three specific restaurants with holiday hours."

She laughs and nods. "Got it. You know, I haven't had Denny's in ages. Let's do it."

"Wait." He narrows his eyes on her playfully. "You mean you're _not_ picking Thai food? Who are you and what have you done with Lucy Preston?"

She rolls her eyes while she grins widely. "She's still here. But it's Christmas and I'm in the mood for something a bit traditional. I think that's more likely at Denny's than…" A quick glance at the Thai menu in his hand brings a full smile to her face as she reads aloud. "_Thaiphoon Restaurant_, don't you?" She pauses with a thoughtful quirked brow and chuckles. "Oh that's clever. I see what they did there."

He snorts in amusement and kisses the top of her head. "Traditional it is." He hands her the Denny's menu and shoves the rest in the drawer. "I think we can order online, actually. I'll be right back."

She peruses the printed menu while he heads back to his room, she assumes, to retrieve his phone or his laptop. After a moment, she takes in the half empty room again. There's a TV, a couch, and two collapsible wooden dinner trays. That's it. No coffee table, side tables, or lamps. The walls are white with obvious discoloration where pictures used to hang. She wonders if those were from before him or if he's taken down photos. The kitchen is sparse too. There's the essential cookware and appliances but no decorative towels or even a kitchen mat. It's all very..._bare bones_.

Was it always this way? Aside, from the furniture he admitted to moving, that is. Not that it matters. She has no way of knowing and no frame of reference for what his apartment normally looks like. Today is the first time she's stepped foot in the place.

And suddenly it hits her, how little she actually knows about Wyatt Logan. She knows _him_. His mannerisms, his personality, his startlingly large heart that allows him to give more love but feel more pain than should be humanly possible. But she doesn't know the _facts_ of him. She hasn't memorized the timeline of his life or even his basic stats.

His birthday. When is his birthday? What's his middle name? He told her once that everyone he loved was gone. Does that mean his Grandpa passed away? When? How? What about his bastard of a father? Was he dead too? Where was his mother? When had he lost her? Aside from growing up with a cruel man for a father and losing all of his teammates to war...what other pain had he suffered?

Most of what she knew, she learned second hand.

He surfed, according to Jessica. (When did he have the time?) He spent his teenage years running drugs. (He had to have graduated high school, right? Jessica said they met during senior year. How did he run drugs and graduate?) He suffered abuse from his father but he said his Grandpa picked up the slack. (How? When? For how long?) And then there was Syria. (She didn't _want_ to know anymore about that. She knew enough. And it broke her heart.) All the time they spent together and she's just now understanding that they've barely scratched the surface.

"If you're looking for traditional, Professor, you don't get much more traditional than pot roa—"

She looks up when he stops and finds him studying her with a worried expression. Lap top in one hand, the other nervously running back and forth through his hair. She bites her bottom lip and knows she must have looked completely zoned out. There's an apology on the tip of her tongue. What is she wanting to apologize for? She has absolutely no clue. But the need to let 'sorry' fall from her lips won't go away.

Finally, she scratches the itch.

"Sorry," she says quickly, clearing her throat as if unsticking the word from her throat.

"For what?" He asks. His brows have lifted to his hairline but his eyes have narrowed almost imperceptively.

"I—I don't really know, but I must have looked like a spaced out freak when you came back into the room so—"

"You didn't look like a freak," he assures her with a chuckle. The chuckle fades and his expression turns gloomy. "But you did look..._lost_. I've seen that look on your face before and I'd really hoped I wouldn't see it again anytime soon."

Lost.

Hell, if that isn't accurate.

Tears spring to her eyes, unexpectedly, and just as they did in her mother's house the emotions assault her senses. Her face pinches and then completely crumples. Her hands move too sluggishly to hide it so she knows Wyatt sees it all unfold in real time.

The laptop is shoved onto his kitchen counter carelessly and his arms go around her a second before she starts to sob.

When she imagined the war with Rittenhouse ending, she never imagined it would feel so...pointless. In her mind, she pictured a fresh start at a future of her choosing. But this fresh start doesn't feel like a step forward, it feels like a set back. It feels like the last thirty-six years of her life have just been flushed down the toilet.

There's no job at Stanford waiting on her. No sister to confide in. No demanding mother to pressure her into re-entering the world of Academia. She doesn't even have an apartment to clean out like Wyatt. All she has is a house full of things that don't belong to her. Even the things that are supposedly hers, aren't hers.

They belong to another Lucy. A Lucy who never knew Henry Wallace. A Lucy who never dreamed of strawberry milkshakes while her sister slept in her arms. A Lucy who wanted to marry a doctor named Noah.

She's thrown back to where she was after finding out Wyatt and Rufus weren't actually dead. She feels like no time has passed since and the wounds are open and bleeding. Wyatt promised she wouldn't lose him then, but she did.

On top of everything else, she lost him too. She remembers telling him the past doesn't matter and nothing that could ever happen would stop her from loving him. That's all still true. It will always be true. But the reality is, the life he had with Jessica _just _ended for a second time. Horribly and abruptly. Both of them have emotional scars that haven't healed yet. When they met he was so completely absorbed in the ghost of Jessica. Who's to say he couldn't be absorbed by that ghost all over again?

She wants to be confident in his presence in her life, but the last time she put her faith in the two of them together the ground opened up and swallowed her whole.

So, right now, even with his arms holding her tightly, she feels like she has nothing and no one. There's no tether keeping her here. No ties that bind. She could float away into nothingness like Amy and no one would know the difference.

Wyatt's voice suddenly breaks through fog of her grief.

"I'd know," he whispers desperately with his lips pressed against her forehead. "I'd know the difference if you weren't here, Lucy. I'd feel it like a hole in my gut."

Oh god, had she been saying all of that outloud? Embarrassment colors her face, though it's probably hard to tell through her tears.

There's no mistaking the sorrow and tears she hears in him. Especially not when his voice cracks over his next words. "And I don't care whether you believe me or not, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be your tether. Take whatever you need from me. I'll give it to you. You don't even have to ask. I can never apologize enough for everything I put you through, I know that. But I can be here. I can lend you all the strength you need. Just take it. Take it from me."

That only causes her to cry harder. Not out of sadness, but out of love. Out of disbelief.

Out of _hope_.

"Wyatt, I'm sorry," she says through a hiccuping sob.

"No, don't. Don't apologize. As much as I hate to see you cry, I'd rather have this than the fake smile that used to be permanently etched on your face."

But that's exactly what she's sorry _about_.

"I lied to you about how I felt when she came back." The words leak out of her before she can rein them in. "I should have told you. Or—or at least let you talk. You tried. I stopped you."

"You did what you thought you had to," he tells her as he presses multiple kisses to her temple. "You were doing what you thought would be best for us both. You were trying to make me happy and protect yourself. I get that. I've _always_ understood that."

And she's still doing it. She's still protecting herself from him. Isn't she? That's why she sent him away when they left the bunker. That's why she didn't accept his offer to help her with the house. She was putting distance between them. She was trying desperately to hold on to the little bit of her heart she still has.

Falling right back in to the same traps as always.

Time to try something new.

"I feel like...I feel like I don't have anything or belong anywhere," she confesses. "I have nothing."

"You have me. You belong with me."

His tone is firm and confident.

"We don't really know each other that well, though, if you think about it," she says in a hushed tone. "I—I don't even know your birthday."

"June 29th, 1983," he answers immediately.

"You're younger than me."

He chuckles and adjusts so that his cheek is pressed to her temple instead of his lips. "Is that a deal breaker, ma'am?"

"No," she says as she turns her face into his neck and breathes him in. He smells like leather and soap. She loves it.

"Anything else you want to know? I'll tell you everything. There's nothing I won't tell you, Lucy. The things you don't know...they're just details. The small stuff. We have the rest of our lives to learn those things about each other," he declares as he leads them over to his couch.

Her limbs feel heavy and she knows her movements are clumsy because of it. They sit and he pulls her into his lap. She lets him because, honestly, there's no place else she'd rather be. He has one hand spread out on the small of her back, his thumb tracing circles, and the other is on her thigh and sliding idly up and down the length of it. When he speaks again, his voice is warm but still ragged from heavy emotions.

"You know all the important things. The big concepts. You know exactly how much of a pain in the ass I can be. You've suffered through the part of me that's a thoughtless bastard, like my old man. You know my habits, my likes and my dislikes. You understand my career in a way no one ever really has before. You get me. There are people who know all the little ins and out of my life who don't _get me_ the way you do. What we have doesn't live in facts or a list of dates, Professor, as much as I know you love those. What we have is a connection that's a lot harder to find than anything you'd read in my Homeland Secruity dossier. Take it from me, not everybody gets to feel this way about somebody else."

She feels a kiss lost somewhere in her hair before he finishes that beautiful speech with one last sentence.

"Believe it or not, even with all the shit we've been through, we're the lucky ones, you and me."

The idea that they're lucky when all they seem to come up against is bad luck puts a small smile on her face. "If this is good luck then god help us if we ever have a streak of bad luck."

He laughs softly and nods his agreement. "I'm just grateful there's no more risks of timeline changes fucking with us. I think I'm done with the concept of time travel for the rest of my life. No more Jules Vern. No more Michael J. Fox. No more Bill and Ted—It's all banned from my life forever."

"No more Bill and Ted? You can't ban a Keanu movie from your life forever. He's a national treasure."

His laugh is louder this time as he buries his face in the curve of her throat. She feels his smile pressed into her neck, and thinks it might be the best thing she's ever felt against her skin.

"I take it from the jokes, that you're feeling better?" He asks.

"I just...I panicked. I panicked so hard."

"I noticed. I could tell you were running scared the minute I opened the door. I just didn't realize you were running from me."

"I—I wasn't," she says as she pulls away to meet his eyes. It's important that she corrects him — that he understands. "Wyatt, I wasn't. At least, I wasn't _just_ running away from you. If I was truly running away from you then I wouldn't have come here. I wouldn't have sought you out. I was running from my failures and my guilt, and yes our past is a part of that. But I wasn't running from _you_. I came over here because I needed you. I will always need you. Is that clear, soldier?"

He nods and then dips his head to press his forehead to hers. "Clear, ma'am."

"My emotions are a little...messy, right now. A lot has happened in that last several weeks. It's overwhelming a lot of the time and even knowing I love you and knowing you love me, I still have a tendency to keep it to myself. I realized just a few minutes ago that I don't need to do that anymore and I—I'm gonna work on it. I need to start letting you in. I need to start confiding in you. You deserve that. _We_ deserve that."

"Good," he replies as he nuzzles his nose to hers. "I want to know everything that goes on inside your head, Lucy. I want to know _you_. Wholly and completely. So much so that I can't stop thinking about you. And I don't want to."

"I can't stop thinking about you, either," she replies. "Even in the middle of an emotional crisis."

He chuckles and then kisses her lips more tenderly than she ever dreamed possible. She can feel every last ounce of his love and affection for her through his lips and his tongue. It's doing wonders for her tear weary heart. Each stroke of his tongue lifts her spirits higher and higher. By the time he pulls away, her heartbeat is more alive than it has been since they left the bunker that morning.

There's a warmth and cheerfulness running through her now that reminds her it's Christmas. There's no tree, no multicolored lights. Just the two of them and a golden fire of chemistry that only they feel.

"This is our first Christmas together," she says as an unstoppable smile spreads across her face.

"Next year, we'll have a tree," he promises. "A huge one. Biggest one on the lot."

She laughs and shakes her head. "I don't need the biggest tree on the lot. So long as we wake up together like we did this morning, I'll be fine. I liked waking up with you. It's nice that your voice was the first thing I heard today."

He nods his agreement and places another lazy kiss on her lips. "Best Christmas present ever."

"Oh good," she says with a teasing grin. "Especially because I didn't have the foresight to steal you anything from 1941. You criminal."

"I doubt anyone missed a tiny little Christmas ornament, Babydoll," he needles, rolling his eyes.

Her chest tightens and her heart flutters at the sound of the old playful nickname. She feels her eyes watering but refuses to let the tears fall, even if they're happy ones. Finally, _finally_, it feels like they're back. Right where they should be.

Together.

"Well, you could have at least warned me, _Sweetheart_, I would have stolen something for you too. I feel bad that I didn't get you anything," she admits.

"You did," he says with a reassuring smile. "This, right here. Us, together. That's what you got me. That's all I wanted."

"God, I love you," she says, beaming brightly at him. "But I'm also legitamtely starving. Weren't we ordering food before I had an emotional breakdown in your kitchen?"

"Yes, we were. Did you decide what you wanted?" He asks as he gives her thigh a comforting squeeze.

"The pot roast dinner," she replies with a nod.

"Good choice. I'll get it ordered."

"Where's your bathroom?" She asks as she removes herself from his lap. She waves a hand in front of her tear stained face. "I think I need to clean up this situation."

Wyatt stands with her and kisses one tear track and then the other. "End of the hall, in my room. I would say the guest bath but there's no supplies in there. Take your time. I'll be out here when you're done."

Once she's back there, she decides to take a shower. There's something comforting about hot water after you've cried entirely too much. She borrows Wyatt's products and feels renewed by the smell of him surrounding her. Her Christmas took a temporary turn for the worst, but it's back on track now. Thanks to him.

She wraps a towel around her, looks at her discarded clothes on the bed, and scowls. Putting her jeans back on isn't the tiniest bit appealing to her right now. But in her haste to get out of the house, she didn't bring anything else. She bites her lip and eyes Wyatt's dresser thoughtfully.

Well, hadn't he told her to take whatever she needed from him?

And, after all, it wouldn't be the first time she's stolen his clothing.

She digs through his drawers until she finds a threadbare Army t-shirt. It's stretched out and worn and so long that the bottom hem reaches halfway down her thighs. _Perfect_. She throws her damp hair up in a sloppy top knot, snatches a pair of socks, and then neatly folds her own clothes before walking out into the hall.

She must have been back there longer than she realized because as she reaches the living room Wyatt is closing his front door with a bag of food in his hands. He's setting the food down on the kitchen counter when she announces her presence.

"That was fast," she says as she tucks herself into his side and wraps her arms around him.

"Yeah, turns out not too many people order delivery form Denny's on Christmas—"

He freezes and she feels every one of his muscles tense.

"Is that my shirt?" He asks with a loud gulp and hazy eyes.

"Oh! Yeah, I didn't bring anything with me and I really didn't feel like putting my jeans back on—" She cuts off her own sentence with a yelp as she's abruptly scooped up and deposited onto the counter next to the food. "Oh, okay. We're doing this now."

She has just enough time to register the heat in his gaze before his lips are devouring hers and his hands are parting her knees. They slide up her thighs and then wrap around her waist to yank her to the edge of the counter, all while his mouth is claiming hers ferociously. She's pressed flush against him when his lips leave hers to trail open wet kisses over her neck. He pulls the collar so it falls off one shoulder and then kisses a blazing path across her visible skin.

"So, taking the shirt was a good idea?" She asks breathlessly as his hands slip underneath the thin cotton.

"This is my favorite shirt," he tells her between kisses.

"I had no idea," she replies.

His hips snap to hers and her resulting gasp is so loud that it echoes around the kitchen.

"Keep it." His voice is hoarse but certain.

"I wasn't planning on giving it back in the first place, but okay."

A muffled laugh escapes him as he finds her lips again and then lifts the shirt up and over her head.

"Right, what was I thinking," he replies as he whips off his own shirt. "I should know better. Did you take that blue flannel back? I couldn't find it when I unpacked this morning."

She presses her lips together to hide a grin and then feigns innocence. "What blue flannel?"

He quirks a disbelieving brow at her and smirks. "And you called _me_ a criminal. At least I stole something _for you_ and not _from you_."

"Less talking, more kissing," she orders while she wraps legs around his waist.

"Bossy know it all," he mutters as he surges forward to press his bare chest to hers. "Merry Christmas, by the way," he says before he seals their lips together once again.

Oh, _yes. _Merry Christmas indeed. It had been an exhausting day full of too much emotion but as long as it ended like _this_, with him, then it was all worth it. Every tear, every struggle, every crack in her heart was all worth it _for him_.

* * *

**A/N: **Here are the three prompts in the order that I used them:

"I can't stop thinking about you."

"It's nice that your voice was the first thing I heard today."

"Is that my shirt?"


End file.
